Fiscally Responsible Pumpkin

My parents are blessed with a wonderful neighbor whose parents originally built the home they live in. The children that now occupy the old homestead are continuing to instill fiscal responsibility in their children by keeping family tradition alive. To this family, pumpkins are more than an ingredient in pumpkin pies and the medium for sculpting jack-o-lanterns. They are a lesson in patience, hard work and fiscal rewards. The family’s daughters were responsible for planting and caring for the pumpkin patch and in the fall would haul the pumpkins out to the road and sell them: they got to keep the proceeds.

The annual pumpkin sale continues, only now it is the granddaughters that offer up bins of pumpkins that sell out in only a couple of hours. The family’s tradition lives on and I can not resist purchasing a few pumpkins to make into jack-o-lanterns to greet the many trick-or-treaters that live in my Ballard neighborhood. I am sure the rewards for these girls’ hard work is much sweeter than any trick-or-treat candy they may have received on Halloween.